


Hush

by ss10009



Category: Mediator Series - Meg Cabot
Genre: Case Fic, F/M, Sorry?, post-remembrance, remembrance spoilers, revised version of a post to fanfiction.net, this time it is not porn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-13 02:43:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7135310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ss10009/pseuds/ss10009
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Suze's work at the newly opened Carmel Pediatric Center leads her and Jesse to their toughest challenge yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Uno

To be honest, I wasn't entirely sure if the receptionist knew my name. You would think she did, since it was written on the sign of the building that she worked in, and she must've seen it every morning when she rolled into the parking lot, but I still couldn't be sure. I had never once heard her say my name before. Felipa had a habit of calling everyone "honey" or "sugar" or "cariña" (or cariño in Jesse's case).

 

"I know you've married that handsome man, sweetie, but eight o'clock is when you're supposed to be here," Felipa said in greeting as I strode past the receptionist desk and further into the clinic where my office was.

 

Felipa was an old lady, so she could get away with chiding me like that without getting fired. Jesse had no intention of firing her though. The decades she'd spent at St. Francis prior to retirement had made her efficient, patient, and acclimated to the stimulation and excitement of the front desk. She was also Peruvian, and Jesse enjoyed speaking in Spanish with people who actually understand everything he said. In other words, he enjoyed speaking in Spanish with people who were not me.

 

"I know, I know," was the muffled defense I gave for myself while I gripped my cup of coffee in my mouth with my teeth, held my bag in my left hand, and opened the door with my right. I could've asked Felipa for help, but I was trying to draw as little attention to myself as possible. Just because Felipa knew I was late didn't mean everyone else at the clinic had to know as well.

 

Halfway through me juggling my things and the doorknob, the door opened of its own accord. Or rather, it opened at the accord of Dr. Jesse de Silva, the person I'd been hoping to avoid most.

 

"Look who showed up just in time for her lunch break," Jesse said. One of his eyebrows, the one with the scar running through it, was raised in disapproval.

 

With one of my hands now free, I took the coffee cup out of my mouth and said, "There's almost an hour left till lunch. And I'm only late because I didn't feel well this morning."

 

It was true. I'd had a bad cold for the past week, and all of the Nyquil in the world wasn't doing a thing to fix it.

 

"In that case, you know that caffeinated beverages only make a cold worse, right?" Jesse said, and he took my cup of coffee from my hand before I could mount any protest.

 

He drained the rest of my coffee, which I had barely started on, in the span of about five seconds. Jesse's caffeine tolerance was a lot higher than mine or any other regular person's. Unlike most of the things that made Jesse different from other people though, this had nothing to do with being born in 1830 or being revived over a century and a half later. His caffeine tolerance was entirely a product of med school.

 

"Is coffee really bad for colds or did you just want my coffee?" I asked.

 

"Both," he said. "And you should've told me or Felipa you weren't feeling well, so we could've called your clients to reschedule."

 

"Clients?" I asked. The whole reason I'd let myself lag behind at home for so long was because I'd thought my schedule was empty and no one was waiting to see me. Jesse had been able to establish a pretty sizable patient roster already, given his reputation at St. Francis, but my clientele was still slight. So far, I'd spent more time around the clinic doing housekeeping than I had putting my counseling degree to use.

 

"Client," Jesse corrected himself. "I saw a boy with a fractured arm this morning, and his guardian was looking for a counselor for him. I recommended you, and since I knew your schedule was open…"

 

I started to swear but caught myself halfway. The prices on the swear jar had doubled since the clinic opened. There were young, impressionable ears around whose parents would probably change their clinic stat if they found out how often the resident counselor employed four letter words.

 

"When is he scheduled?" I asked.

 

"About five minutes ago."

 

This time I didn't catch the swear word that came out of my mouth, and Jesse gave me a reproachful look before I took off down the short hallway to my office.

 

I was greeted by two sights when I entered the room.

 

First, there was the sight of the ocean in the distance from the large window behind my desk. Jesse gave me the best room for my office when he bought the clinic. His logic at the time was that he wouldn't actually be meeting patients in his office, so I'd be spending more time in my office than he would in his, and besides, didn't I like looking at the ocean? I couldn't exactly say it was a decision I rebelled against.

 

Second of all, and, most importantly, there was a little boy and a woman sitting in the chairs in front of my desk.

 

"Finally," the woman said in exasperation. She had dishwater blonde hair that was decidedly brunette at the roots and was wearing a sweater set with a string of fake pearls. The unimpressed look on her face, however, was entirely genuine.

 

I didn't bother making excuses for myself. Although, as far as excuses went, the contents of my stomach deciding to become one with the toilet in a really unnatural way was probably a pretty good one.

 

"I'm sorry about the wait," I said as the woman gave a sniffle of displeasure. "My name is Susannah de Silva. Pleased to meet you."

 

"Pauline George. Pleasure." The way she said "pleasure" didn't make me think it was a pleasure at all, but I shook her hand nonetheless.

 

"You can call me Suze," I said to the little boy standing next to her. His left arm was in a sling, as was typical for broken arms. The hollow expression in his gray eyes told me that his arm might not be the only thing that was broken.

 

I reached my right hand out for his, and he looked at it for a second before he took it in his own and shook it. He didn't offer me his name.

 

Pauline noticed and immediately saw to remedying this deficiency. "His name is Daniel. Daniel Powell. I'm his aunt. We were telling this to the doctor earlier, so I'm sure you've already heard, but Daniel witnessed a very unfortunate incident a couple of days ago. And he hasn't said a word since. He didn't even let on about how much his arm was hurting until this morning."

 

I looked from Pauline to Daniel, who, true to Pauline's word, had not spoken once.

 

"When you say unfortunate incident…," I began.

 

"His mother's death. She worked at the jewelry store on Lincoln Street. I don't know if you might have heard about it."

 

I had heard. There wasn't much in the way of exciting crime stories in Carmel, so the fact that there had been a homicide in a jewelry store would probably be the headline for the next month or three.

 

"Daniel here was in the car outside of the store when it happened. He said, well, he didn't _say_ , but he intimated that he was asleep and didn't see anything. But still. The police have already interviewed him about it to the best of their abilities."

 

I nodded while Pauline kept going.

 

"Now, look, I'm not really one for counseling. I think children are resilient. But the police did recommend that Daniel see someone, and since you're located within the clinic… You accept insurance, right?"

 

"We do," I said. That had been one of the conditions of the grant Jesse had received, to help patients regardless of their financial circumstances. We'd done our best to extend that idea beyond physical conditions to mental and emotional ones as well. "And the police were right to recommend that Daniel see someone. I'm happy you took their advice."

 

Pauline made a "hmm" noise, to showcase how unconvinced she was that she'd made the right choice. Then she asked, "What's your prognosis?"

 

"Prognosis?" I asked. She couldn't be serious.

 

"Prognosis," Pauline repeated frustratedly. She was indeed serious. "When do you think he'll start talking again? Start, you know?" And she made a few hand motions as if to convey an energetic smiling child.

 

That was one of the things people didn't really understand about mental health. Earlier, Jesse had probably told Pauline that Daniel's arm would mend in a few weeks, so Pauline wanted the same status report here. But Daniel was always going to carry the memory of his mother's death around. You couldn't put a cast and a sling on your own mind.

 

"With regular counseling, I believe we should see marked improvement in Daniel's condition," I said. It was a set phrase I used for people who were skeptical about counseling being helpful.

 

Pauline didn't look satisfied. "How regular can you make it?" she asked.

 

"Given the circumstances, I'd say two, maybe three times a week would be best for right now. We can scale back later to once a week."

 

"And then eventually nothing at all?" Pauline asked.

 

"Even without experiencing trauma, a weekly or biweekly counseling session is really a good idea for mental and emotional health."

 

Pauline gave me a withering look and said, "We'll see about that."

 

I smiled as serenely as I could in response.

 

"Monday afternoons. Wednesday afternoons. Friday afternoons. Can you put that in your schedule? Daniel's school releases at three o'clock, so he can be here by half past."

 

I made a big show of opening up my datebook and looking thoughtful before I confirmed that I had availability during those times. I knew that I didn't have many clients yet, but Pauline didn't need to be privy to that information.

 

Pauline pulled out her cell phone, a Blackberry of all things, and inputted everything into her calendar. 3:30 to 4:30, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons.

 

"Since today is Monday, would Daniel be interested in starting his first session today?" I asked.

 

She replied curtly, "I think Daniel has seen enough of the clinic for one day."

 

Given the unmoving blank expression he'd had on his face since I'd first met him, there was no telling if Pauline was right or wrong about this.

 

Pauline stood and tapped Daniel on the shoulder to follow suit. I stood as well and shook Pauline's hand again.

 

"It was nice meeting you," I said. "I look forward to seeing Daniel this Wednesday."

 

Pauline returned my handshake but not my words, and she and Daniel left my office soon afterwards.

 

I more than had my work cut out for me. If I didn't make headway and quick, I'd have to refer him to someone else, probably a psychiatrist and not just a counselor. My experience with Becca had given me some confidence in helping with more traumatic issues, but I was more used to dealing with patients whose recent experiences weren't quite so devastating.

 

I flipped open one of the psychology journals that I kept on the bookshelf behind my desk and was about three quarters of the way through with a paper about selective mutism when I heard a knock on my door.

 

I eyed my calendar, which was empty until two o'clock, before I said, "Come in."

 

It wasn't a patient or Felipa on the other side of the door. It was Jesse who, judging from the boxes in his hands, came bearing takeout. He set the boxes down on the table across from my desk, where I'd set up two arm chairs, the ones where Pauline and Daniel had been sitting, and a coffee table as a less formal area for speaking with patients.

 

Once the boxes were out of his hands, he hung up his white lab coat on the coat rack next to the door. I tried not to let my eyes flutter downward to take in how well his butt filled out his pants, but I wound up failing. Just because Jesse and I had an active sex life now did not mean that I was going to stop checking him out any time soon.

 

He caught me looking when he turned around and gave me a knowing look when he saw I didn't have enough shame left to look sheepish about it.

 

"Thai food today," he announced before he set himself down in one of the armchairs and started removing food from the bag.

 

I put the journal down and joined him around the coffee table a second later.

 

When I reached for one of the takeout containers, a green curry whose deliciousness I could smell straight through its cup, Jesse pulled it away from my grasp and held it in his lap.

 

I groaned. "First the coffee now this?" I asked. "What gives? Is curry bad for a cold, too?"

 

"It's not that," Jesse said, and he held the Styrofoam cup in the air behind his head once he saw my hand reach across the table and head for his lap. "Promise me you'll be on time for work tomorrow," he said.

 

"What are you, my boss or something?" I asked.

 

I didn't want to have to stand up to get my curry, but if it came down to it…

 

Jesse groaned. It was times like this that I could tell he regretted making me a part of the clinic. "Technically, yes. And, as your boss, I would appreciate it if you let someone know when you plan on being late. When I woke you up this morning, you told me you'd leave on your own and be here by eight."

 

"Fine. I'll be on time for work tomorrow. Do you want me to report our relationship to HR, too?"

 

"Susannah, you _are_ HR," Jesse said before he set the curry back down on the table.

 

I made a grab for it immediately while Jesse spoke again. "You know, as your husband, I think you should let me examine you," he said.

 

I grinned and said, "You mean you want to _juego al medicos_?"

 

" _Jugar al medicos_ ," he corrected automatically. "And no, I mean an actual examination."

 

"It's a cold, Jesse, not the plague," I said, and I took the lid off of the curry and grabbed a spoon from the bag of takeout.

 

"Still."

 

I shrugged as I put the first spoonful of curry in my mouth. It was just as good as I expected it to be, maybe even better. I followed the first spoonful with a second and a third soon afterwards. I put the curry down on the table briefly so that I could put my back against one side of the arm chair and hang my legs over the other side. I let my heels fall from my feet before I picked up the curry again.

 

After another mouthful, I said, "You could've given me a heads up that my newest patient was a product of the jewelry heist."

 

Jesse looked up from his pad thai in amusement. "I would have if you'd been here on time."

 

I was about to complain that he was being unfair to me, since I was sick and all, when the phone on my desk rang. I rolled myself out of my chair to answer it.

 

"Carmel Pediatrics Center. Susannah speaking."

 

"It's Felipa, dear. Would the doctor happen to be in your office?" Felipa asked.

 

"He's in here."

 

"Is he decent for conversation or should I call back later?"

 

"Decent. Perfectly decent," I said. In the two weeks that the clinic had been open, Felipa had caught us going at it during lunchtime a grand total of one time, and I was pretty sure she would never let either of us live it down.

 

"Then tell him Dr. Whitehall is on line two when he's ready," she said.

 

"Will do."

 

Felipa's voice disappeared, and I noticed the button for the second line was blinking in anticipation of someone picking it up.

 

"Phone for you," I said to Jesse. "Dr. Whitehall's on line two."

 

Jesse set his box of pad thai down on the table and headed over quickly. Dr. Whitehall was one of the people Jesse was interviewing for a job at the clinic. Having one pediatrician was fine, but two would've been better, especially if Jesse ever wanted to take any time off during the week.

 

My phone buzzed as I heard Jesse greet Dr. Whitehall.

 

I had a text from Gina:

 

_IT'S GOING TO AIR!_

 

I texted her back a series of exclamation points immediately. Gina had stuck it out in Carmel for nearly a year after she landed her first theater role. She might've stayed here indefinitely, seeing as she was in a relationship with Jake now, but a talent scout from LA noticed her last fall and thought she'd be a good fit for a role in a new TV show. She'd gone down to LA and shot everything, but there was no guarantee that the show would actually see any time on TV at all.

 

Gina's next text was similarly in all caps.

 

_I'M IN THE PROMO!_

 

The following text was a link to a YouTube video.

 

I was about to open the link when I heard Jesse's phone call wrapping up. Instead, I texted

 

_Can't wait to watch!_

 

and returned my phone to its lock screen just as Jesse put the office phone back on its receiver.

 

I looked at him, and he smiled lopsidedly.

 

"I think I've found our new addition," he said brightly.


	2. Dos

As it turned out, Dr. Whitehall was free the next day to come by for a more formal interview at the clinic. Or at least he was free for the hour between noon and one o'clock, which meant that Jesse and I had to cancel our informal daily lunch plans together the following day.

 

"Are you sure you don't want to conduct a portion of the interview, Susannah?" Jesse asked.

 

He was standing just inside my office with his back to the closed door a few feet in front of where I stood. It was five minutes to noon, and I knew that Dr. Whitehall had already settled himself into a seat in front of Jesse's desk in the office two doors down from mine.

 

"I know I said I was your boss yesterday, but what we have is a partnership," Jesse continued.

 

"I know it's a partnership. That's why both of our names are on the sign outside," I said.

 

Jesse didn't looked entirely convinced, so I said, "Do you want me to stay and interview him? I mean, I'd have to call CeeCee and tell her lunch is canceled, but if you want me to stay, I can."

 

I fiddled with the keys to the BMW as I said it. I'd gotten up at the same time Jesse had this morning, and he drove the both of us to work. It was environmentally responsible, and it made Jesse happy to know that I was showing up to work on time, even if I had felt like vomiting for most of the morning.

 

"So long as you're sure, querida, then it's fine. Enjoy your lunch."

 

I crossed the distance between us and gave him a quick kiss on the lips.

 

"I trust your judgement," I said as I pulled away from him.

 

He grinned and said playfully, "You should."

 

By the time I showed up at the Happy Medium about ten minutes later, CeeCee had already placed her order. I put in my own order, a portobello and goat cheese sandwich, and took a seat across from CeeCee at the booth she'd claimed.

 

CeeCee had her laptop in front of her and was halfway through a smoothie. God only knew what her Aunt Pru had put in it. Smoothies at the Happy Medium were always bananas, apples, mangos, and then something decidedly non-fruity, like radishes or kale.

 

"Business?" I asked.

 

"Pleasure," CeeCee said. "I was about to watch the promo spot for Gina's new show."

 

"I'll watch with," I said, and I abandoned my seat across from her and slid in next to her so I could see the laptop screen.

 

She angled it slightly and then pressed play on a YouTube video. I'd seen the commercial yesterday, after Gina had sent it to me, but I didn't mind watching it again. Gina's new show was called _Devil's Advocate_ and joined in with the constant crop of legal dramas with a gimmick. The gimmick here was that the show's cast was deciding whether or not people were going to Hell. I wasn't sure how much material they could stretch out of that, but I hoped it was enough for Gina's career in LA to get a strong foothold.

 

"So that's her," CeeCee said, pausing at the screen and pointing.

 

I raised an eyebrow and said, "That most definitely is not her."

 

The girl on screen had green eyes and brown hair and, while she had a nice tan, her skin was most definitely not copper colored.

 

"Not Gina," CeeCee said. "I know it's not Gina. I meant it's Calla Rose."

 

I wrinkled my nose. "You follow Calla Rose?" I asked.

 

Calla Rose Portland was the heiress to a railroad or an airline or something else that came part in parcel with a lot of money, and she'd spent the past few years as an Instagram and runway model before transitioning to the silver screen. Everything I knew about her came courtesy of Gina.

 

"I don't, but I thought I'd try and get a glimpse of Paul's fiancé in action," CeeCee said.

 

My eyes must have gone the size of silver dollars.

 

"Paul's what?" I asked.

 

"Paul's engaged," CeeCee said, this time more slowly.

 

I wasn't sure how long I stared at CeeCee, but I know I spent at least ten seconds with my eyes fixed on her and not making a sound. The Paul Slater I'd seen last, the one who has high off of his inheritance, amongst other things, was in no rush to head to the altar.

 

Finally, I said, "Engaged to be married?"

 

"Yes, Suze. Engaged to be married. How is this shocking? It was in last month's alumni newsletter. And I'm pretty sure it must've been in _People_ or on Buzzfeed or something."

 

"Engaged," I repeated. And then I swore in a way that would've warranted a large submission to the swear jar.

 

"If it's any consolation…," CeeCee began.

 

"I don't need consoling," I said quickly. "This is good. This is great."

 

My tone, which was still shocked, did not convince CeeCee that I was happy about this. To be honest, I wasn't happy about this. I was confused. I didn't care what Paul did, but there were certain ways in which I could expect him to be predictable. One of these ways was not going off and getting hitched.

 

"If it's any consolation, you and Calla Rose look a lot alike."

 

"If that were true, and it's not, it wouldn't be consolation. Just confirmation that Paul is still obsessed with me."

 

"I thought that would be consolation," CeeCee said.

 

I stared at her blankly. "Why the hell would that be in any way consoling?"

 

She shrugged. "You're used to him being obsessed with you, and change is one of those things that hits people hard. Or something like that. You'd know better than I would, Mrs. Counselor."

 

CeeCee ended the conversation by pressing play and continuing with the rest of the video, but I couldn't bring myself to give my full attention to it. Did CeeCee have a point? Paul getting engaged reminded me of him taking Kelly Prescott to the winter formal instead of me, way back in junior year. It had confused me then, and it was confusing me now. Every time I thought I understood the game he was playing, he threw out the chessboard and replaced it with mahjong.

 

Was it possible that he was actually moving on?

 

The clip ended, and, before autoplay could decide that we wanted to watch an E! Insider report on Calla Rose's Hollywood mansion that was apparently up for sale, CeeCee exited YouTube. She opened up her e-mail account next and then let out a loud groan.

 

"Work?" I asked, as I slid back over to my side of the table.

 

CeeCee nodded in confirmation just as her food, an eggplant and chickpea salad, arrived at the table. My sandwich followed it shortly.

 

She didn't say anything for a minute as I munched on bread and mushroom. The only sound in the cafe was her typing at roughly two hundred words per second and CeeCee's Aunt Pru humming to herself distractedly from behind the counter.

 

After a few more moments of this relative silence, she closed the lid on her laptop and put a forkful of salad into her mouth.

 

She chewed, swallowed, and then said, "Work."

 

"How are things going between you and your work husband?" I asked.

 

CeeCee gave me a reproachful look. "Hugo is not my work husband," she said.

 

Hugo Braggart was totally CeeCee's work husband, even if she was convinced that he wasn't. He'd graduated from the Mission a few years before we had, and he was one of the higher ups at the _Pine Cone_. CeeCee and Hugo had formed a kindred bond ever since she'd replaced him as the head of the police beat.

 

"I call it like I see it," I said. "And besides, it's not like things have to be sexual for him to be your work husband. I'm pretty sure Felipa is Jesse's work wife."

 

"How is Felipa Jesse's work wife when you're his wife and you work with him?" she asked.

 

"Felipa never struggles with proper verb conjugation in Spanish."

 

CeeCee finished another bite of her salad and said, "Hugo told me he wishes he was back on the police beat."

 

"The police beat in Carmel?" I asked.

 

"It's been crazy these past few days, what with the heists and everything. And there's not a single lead yet. Or at least not any leads the police have felt comfortable telling the press. All we've got is a video of it."

 

I raised an eyebrow. "You've got the criminal on tape, and you still have no idea who did it? In a town the size of Carmel?"

 

"We got the crime on tape," CeeCee corrected, "not the criminal."

 

I must've still looked confused because CeeCee reopened her laptop and beckoned to me.

 

"You must not have seen the news this morning," she said.

 

I returned to her side of the table and watched as she typed "Carmel jewelry thief" into the search bar on YouTube. A page of results loaded a few seconds after she hit enter. The Happy Medium might not have had meat, but it did have a strong wifi signal.

 

CeeCee clicked on the first video, and I watched as security footage, time stamped for 23:52, played out across the screen. Nothing was amiss for the first few seconds. All I could see was a black and white view of a cash register and a glass case with some sort of jewelry inside of it.

 

I was about to ask CeeCee what was so remarkable about this video when the footage from the security camera began to flicker with static. It took several moments for it to clear and, when it did, the cash register began to move its own accord, like there were marionette strings attached to it or something. It wasn't a slight nudge to the side either. The register shook for a moment before the drawer burst open and displayed stacks of cash.

 

"It isn't locked?" I asked.

 

"According to the store owners who closed up, it definitely was," CeeCee said.

 

I kept watching as the stacks of bills began to move by themselves until they formed a small hill next to the cash register. And then the hill by the cash register became a hill that was headed out of the line of sight of the video.

 

Shortly after the floating wad of cash left the frame, the video clip ended.

 

"See the problem?" CeeCee asked as she shut her laptop again.

 

I was about to tell her that the problem was that I didn't see the problem, but then I realized that I could see the problem clear as day. There was no magic trick that was going to bust open a locked cash register and let someone walk out with thousands of dollars without being seen. There were, however, spectral powers that had the potential to do just that.

 

"I'm going to get you promoted, CeeCee," I said.

 

She looked at me with a raised eyebrow.

 

I glanced at Aunt Pru, who looked like she wasn't paying attention to anything besides a group of tarot cards in front of her, and said, "I'm one hundred percent sure what you've got on your hands is a ghost."

 

CeeCee did not look pleased.

 

Similarly, when I got back to the clinic a half hour later, Jesse was not pleased with the news either.

 

I had cornered him in his office and told him the whole story with four minutes to go until the clock struck one and our lunch breaks ended.

 

"Let's focus on the positive for now," Jesse said. "Dr. Whitehall will be joining us here soon."

 

"And that's great, except for the part where there'll still be a felonious NCDP on the loose after he gets here," I said.

 

Jesse sighed. "Trying to solve a mystery like this right now with the clinic so new sounds like borrowing trouble."

 

"The life of a mediator is borrowing trouble, Jesse. There's never a good time," I said in frustration.

 

I regretted my tone even as I said it though. I could see how tired Jesse looked. He was always the first person to arrive to the clinic, and he was always the last person to leave. He regularly stayed past five in an attempt to accommodate all the parents who couldn't take off work to get their kid into the doctor. Jesse would probably never stop being grateful over the fact that he was doing his dream job against all odds, and he showed every bit of that gratitude in how hard he worked.

 

He ran a hand through his hair and said, "When Dr. Whitehall gets settled in and there are more hands around the clinic, we'll start mediating then, alright?"

 

"Alright," I said.

 

Jesse smiled and I smiled back as I left his office.

 

Sometimes, if I kept my words short and sweet, Jesse couldn't tell that I was lying to him. Because I didn't plan on waiting for his help when the clinic calmed down.

 

Every second you leave a recalcitrant ghost unattended, the more damage they cause and a bigger problem they become. Twenty six years of experience had taught me that well enough. If the NCDP in question was hitting up jewelry stores, all I'd have to was figure out what store it was headed to next and have a little heart to heart with it.

 

And by "heart to heart," I meant my foot to its butt.

 


	3. Tres

"What's the first rule of mediation?" I asked as I stood in front of the triplets a few hours later.

 

I'd left work two hours early to give them a mediator lesson in lieu of sitting in my empty office and wondering when I'd get more clients. Mopsy, Flopsy, and Cottontail stood across from me in the living room, and, from where I was standing, I could see the bullet hole in the wall across the tops of their heads.

 

"Tell Aunt Suze everything," they chorused.

 

"What's the second rule of mediation?"

 

"Tell Aunt Suze everything."

 

"And the third rule?"

 

"Never underestimate a ghost."

 

"Exactly," I said.

 

There were a lot of things I'd had to learn by myself in the early days of being a mediator that I never wanted the girls to go through. What kind of aunt would I be if I didn't try to keep them from getting stabbed or shot at or pushed off of roofs into the space where the family hot tub was supposed to go? My lessons with the triplets had been going on for over a year, with Debbie and Brad none the wiser that the gifted and talented classes I said I took them to were actually ghostbusting lessons. What I wanted the girls to understand most from these lessons was that they shouldn't just keep spectral news amongst themselves.

 

This understanding did not work both ways though. Occasionally, I'd let the girls help me solve an easy mediation case, but for the most part I shielded them as much as I could from any potentially abrasive ghosts. For instance, I had no plans of telling them about the ghost robber.

 

But the ghost robber wasn't the only ghost in my life right now.

 

I pictured the ghost in question in my mind. She was of East Asian descent, had an ombré bob with lavender ends, and looked like she was somewhere in her twenties.

 

 

She materialized a moment later between me and the girls.

 

"Suze?" the ghost asked.

 

"I've got some help for you," I said, and I waved a hand in front of me to indicate the triplets.

 

She turned to face them. Judging by the way her mouth hung open slightly, she was clearly confused at the fact that they were looking straight at her and not through her. After a period of hesitation, she said, "Uh…hello."

 

"Hi," the girls said in unison.

 

"I'm Emma."

 

"I'm Elizabeth."

 

"And I'm Emily. And we're mediators."

 

"That means we help ghosts move on to Heaven," Cottontail added.

 

"Or the bad place," Flopsy whispered.

 

"What's your name?" Mopsy asked.

 

 

The ghost looked back towards me like she was seeking confirmation that there really were three little girls who were trying to talk to her. I nodded at her slightly, and she turned back around to face the triplets again.

 

Finally, she said slowly, "I told Suze this the other day, but the problem is I don't remember."

 

This was not what the girls were expecting to hear. Mopsy looked at me in confusion, and I mouthed “keep going” at her. Not every mediator case was open and shut. In fact, most weren't, so it was best for me to start challenging them now. I wanted to see if the triplets would be able to figure out what I had the first time I'd talked to this ghost.

 

Mopsy still looked uncertain, but she asked, "What do you remember then?"

 

"I woke up in water," the ghost said.

 

The girls looked between themselves and then back towards me.

 

"You woke up in water," Flopsy repeated slowly.

 

The ghost nodded.

 

"Did you die at the beach? Were you going swimming?" Cottontail asked.

 

"I don't know. Maybe?"

 

The triplets did not seem to be sure what to make of this again, so I spoke up.

 

"We went over this," I said. "Why might someone not remember what happened to them?"

 

Flopsy raised her hand very dramatically and bounced about. "I know, I know! An accident!"

 

"Bingo," I said. "Well, probably. What do we do next?"

 

The ghost looked at me in curiosity. The last time I'd seen her, ever so briefly, we'd ended things at about this point in the conversation.

 

"We ask Daddy," Cottontail said.

 

I sighed and asked, "What's rule number four?"

 

"Don't tell anyone about ghosts who isn't Aunt Suze, Uncle Jesse, or Father Dominic," they said, slightly out of unison this time.

 

"You’re half-right, Elizabeth. We are going to need to go to the police. But we’re not going to actually go go to the police in real life. We’re going to go to the police online. They have a list of all the car accidents that have happened there," I said.

 

"What happens then?" the ghost asked.

 

" _We_ find out who you are, then _you_ find out who you are, and you'll hopefully remember why you're sticking around."

 

"Sticking around?"

 

I nodded towards the girls and said, "You guys mind explaining?"

 

"You're not supposed to be a ghost, so it means you needed to do something before you died," Mopsy said.

 

"Did you need to tell someone something?" Flopsy said.

 

"Did you need to deliver something to someone?" Cottontail said.

 

"Oh," said the ghost.

 

In the meantime, I'd pulled out my phone and loaded up the browser. I had the California fatal accident reports page saved as a bookmark. I wanted to give the lesson some authenticity, so I handed my phone over to the girls without looking up the ghost first myself.

 

"Find her," I said. "Look for a woman in her twenties."

 

Not only was being able to navigate databases like this a good ghostbusting skill, it would also help them with their reading comprehension and future school research.

 

After five minute of Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail passing my phone between themselves, Flopsy said, "We can't find her."

 

 

"Let me see," I said, and I extended one of my hands.

 

Flopsy handed my phone back to me, and I scrolled through the results myself. I checked the results the girls had gone through and found that there weren't any fatal car accidents with women in their twenties in the past few days in the area. Most people would consider that good news, but, under our circumstances, all it meant was that we were going to have to work harder.

 

I had to scroll through a week's worth of accidents before I found anyone who matched our ghost’s description: twenty-six year old Mika Thompson. But when I entered the name into Google and added car crash, the results indicated that Mika Thompson was black, which our ghost was not.

 

I kept scrolling and kept Googling whenever I found a potential match, but I didn't find anyone who looked like our ghost.

 

The ghost in question looked at me hopefully, but the look in her eyes faltered as they met mine.

 

"I'll keep searching," I said to her. I'd have to take a look at the Missing Persons Database later, which would take longer. "I'll let you know when I find something."

 

The ghost nodded in understanding disappointment and dematerialized a second later.

 

Similarly, the lesson of the day began to draw to a close.

 

"What'd we learn today?" I asked once I'd gotten everyone piled in the backseat of the Land Rover.

 

"Logic puzzles," Flopsy said.

 

"Not what you're going to tell your parents if they ask. I mean, what did you actually learn today?"

 

"Nothing," Cottontail said decisively.

 

Flopsy and Mopsy quickly agreed with this.

 

I sighed.

 

"You learned that mediation can come with setbacks but not to get discouraged," I said.

 

None of them seem convinced by this, but we pulled into the driveway at Brad and Debbie’s soon afterwards. They hopped out of the car the second I put it in park and effectively killed any opportunity I had to further convince them that today wasn't entirely useless.

 

The triplets briefly swarmed Brad, who was standing outside to greet them, before they headed around to the backyard.

 

"Thanks again for taking them to lessons all the time," Brad said. "I wish my shift was over by the time the girls got out of school."

 

Brad had been accepted as a member of the Carmel-by-the-Sea police force. It was great for his relationship with Debbie to not be working with his father-in-law anymore. It was also great for me as a mediator because now I had connections not only to the press and the church but to law enforcement as well.

 

"No problem," I said. "You must be really busy with the jewelry store robberies. I know CeeCee is."

 

"Yeah," he said with a nod. "Pretty much the whole force is investigating."

 

"Any leads?"

 

Brad shook his head and said, "And whoever it is has already hit up most of the stores in town."

 

I took a moment to try and decide how to subtly ask him which stores hadn't been hit up when Brad decided to do the work for me.

 

"Only two stores haven't been robbed, the ones on Ocean Avenue," he said.

 

I almost said "thank you" but caught myself. Instead, I said, "You guys have your work cut out for you, huh?"

 

He just nodded and threaded a hand through his hair, clearly consumed in his own work-related thoughts. It was still strange to see him so engrossed in something. Aside from wrestling, the police force had to have been the first thing resembling an occupation I’d ever seen Brad focus on.

 

I started to feel a weird emotion bubble up in me, something like pride, and I hightailed it out of there before it could fully form. I have grown much more fond of my stepbrothers ever since I stopped living with them, but even I have limits.

 

After I said goodbye to Brad, I headed back to the clinic. Jesse and I had carpooled to work, so he didn’t have a way to come home today without me. Typically, carpooling meant that I was stuck at the clinic until Jesse was finished with work and ready to come home though. And “ready to come home” ranged anywhere from thirty minutes past five to three hours past five.

 

Thankfully, today was a thirty minutes past five kind of day.

 

“Mediator lessons went well?” he asked after seating himself in the passenger side of the Land Rover.

 

“Pretty well,” I said.

 

Jesse narrowed his eyes in suspicion and said, "You didn't try and do more with the thief did you?"

 

 

"How irresponsible do you think I am? I said I'd wait for you, right?"

 

Jesse leaned back slightly, and the look of suspicion I saw in his eyes earlier was gone. Jesse, who regularly insisted I was the worst liar in the world when it came to him, had believed me.

 

His mistake.

 

Although I had not and would not involve the girls in the ghost robbery, I had no intention of waiting on him. The only thing I was waiting on Jesse to do was to fall asleep.

 

It wasn't a long wait either.

 

Once we got home, I did my best at fixing a responsible adult dinner that wasn't takeout but wound up not being able to make anything better than pasta. If Jesse thought there was anything strange about me washing down my dinner with two cups of coffee (I needed the caffeine to stay awake for later), then he didn't mention it. After dinner, Jesse read Herodotus, for fun, and I did kickboxing, for maintaining my physical prowess as a mediator.

 

Jesse closed _The Histories_ after we'd passed over an hour of time this way.

 

"Coming to bed?" he asked.

 

"I'll be up soon," I lied. And with my back turned to him he couldn't see my face to know I was being dishonest.

 

"Are you sure you don't want to come up now?" he asked in a low tone.

 

And I knew that tone.

 

 

I also knew that, if I went up those stairs with him, there was no way I was going to be in any shape to go out and do ghostbusting tonight. Jesse might get turned on the most when I'm dressed with more propriety, but, like most men, Jesse was defenseless against the allure of a pair of yoga pants.

 

"Just going to keep doing kickboxing," I said.

 

I changed positions and moved so that I faced him. There was a definitive bulge at the front of his pants, and I tried to keep myself from shuddering. What I wouldn't have given to spend the night intertwined with my husband as opposed to staking out a ghost in a jewelry store.

 

The first rule of mediation is not "tell Aunt Suze everything." It's "the life of a mediator is unfair."

 

So I told him goodnight, in a tone as firm as what was in his pants, and maintained continued to do kickboxing for a few more seconds. I waited downstairs until it was a little past eleven before I climbed the stairs to our bedroom. I wanted to be wearing my mediating boots, the ones that Jesse had bought as Maximilian28, in case things got physical between me and the ghost tonight. The only caveat was that the boots were still in my closet upstairs.

 

I crept in as quietly as possible and retrieved the boots without turning on any lights. The room was mostly dark, but the moon, whose light was streaming in through the bay window, made it possible for me to see.

 

I headed out just as quietly as I came in before the silence was interrupted by Jesse's voice, coming from behind me.

 

"And where exactly do you think you're going, querida?" he asked.

 

His voice sounded tired, but when I turned back to look at him, he was sitting up and looking straight at me while his bare chest reflected the glow of the moonlight.

 

Fun fact: Jesse did not wear anything to sleep at night.

 

But I tried not to focus on this too much.

 

"I wasn't going anywhere," I said as I looked anywhere besides him.

 

"You're lying to me," Jesse said. "I knew something was strange when you turned me down earlier."

 

"I'm not sex obsessed," I said.

 

Jesse gave me a look that said he disagreed.

 

"I'm not," I said petulantly. Considering how amazing Jesse looked and how talented he was in that arena, my sexual appetite was perfectly normal.

 

"Regardless," he said firmly. "You were going to go out looking for that ghost from the robberies, weren't you?"

 

"Time is important here," I explained. "If we don't head this ghost off while we know its MO, then it may be harder to figure out where it'll be next. And I know you're tired and busy, so I didn't want to bother you."

 

Jesse sighed. If he had a first rule of mediation, it probably went something like "nombre de dios, Susannah, just tell me before you do something stupid on your own."

 

"Where exactly did you plan on going?" he asked me, and he swung his legs over the side of the bed, stood up, and headed towards me. I thought he was coming over to interrogate me some more, but if Jesse thought that I could pay attention to him while he was standing in front of me naked in the moonlight, then we might as well have gotten divorced right right there on the spot because he clearly did not know me at all.

 

But he wasn't coming over to talk to me. He was headed for the closet.

 

"I was going to go to one of the jewelry stores on Ocean Avenue," I said. I'd looked up the directions to both stores while I'd been downstairs earlier. “I figured I would start with the one that was slightly closer to our house.”

 

Jesse emerged from the closet a few moments later in a slightly wrinkled button down and a pair of straight fit jeans. He was holding his keys in his hands.

 

"I'm coming with you," he said.


	4. Cuatro

A bust.

 

That was what the entire night was. All of our efforts, driving down to Ocean Avenue and parking as close as we could while laying low from whatever surveillance Carmel PD had probably mounted, staying awake while Jesse dozed off next to me in the driver's seat, and keeping my eyes glued to the jewelry store to watch for signs of paranormal activity, had been for nothing.

 

I shook Jesse awake as the sun was rose. It was nearly 6 o'clock.

 

"Es el fantasma aqui?" Jesse said. He usually spoke in slightly slurred Spanish right after he woke up. I found this both cute and difficult to understand.

 

Thankfully, "el fantasma" was one of the first words I'd learned in Spanish, after "querida."

 

"No, Jesse. The ghost isn't here. It never showed up," I said.

 

Jesse yawned, stretched, and started the car.

 

"So that was the time sensitive matter you decided couldn't wait a few more days?" he asked as we headed out of the Valley and into the Carmel Hills where we lived.

 

"I was right when I said you didn't need to come then," I said.

 

"You still should have told me."

 

And I think he said something after that, but I wouldn't know. Once the car was in motion my eyes drooped closed, and they didn't open again until Jesse had pulled into the garage, turned off the ignition, and began to call my name.

 

"Go upstairs and get some sleep," Jesse said. "You look terrible."

 

"Just what every wife wants to hear from her husband," I said groggily.

 

"I'm serious, Susannah. You shouldn't have stayed up all night when you have a cold."

 

I was about to disagree with him and tell him I was fine when I realized I most definitely was not fine. I opened the car door and promptly spilled the contents of my stomach onto the floor of the garage.

 

When I was done vomiting, the look on Jesse's face was stern rather than disgusted. There must not have been much left to disgust him after seeing the bodily horrors children produced on a daily basis.

 

"You're not going to work. You're going to see a doctor," he said.

 

"I can't stay home today,” I argued. “I have appointments.”

 

Why was I arguing? Between how my stomach felt and the sense of time delay I got from every move I made, thanks to my fatigue, staying home sounded like a godsend.

 

"You're sick, Susannah. You'll have to cancel," he said.

 

"I'm fine," I said, and I put extra emphasis on the word “fine.”

 

Jesse still wasn't buying it though. I wasn't buying my lie either, but I had my first appointment with Daniel today. I was willing to bet nearly anything that Daniel's mother had a close encounter with the ghost. Maybe Daniel had gone mute because he'd seen something he just couldn't explain, namely supernatural phenomena.

 

"I'm only letting you come to work today if you promise to see a doctor this evening."

 

"Whatever happened to being partners and equals and everything? You can't just order me to do things."

 

"I'm not worried about your wellbeing as your boss, Susannah,” Jesse said. “I know it's been more than a year, but don't tell me you've already forgotten that we're married."

 

"Fine," I said as I wondered if DayQuil and Red Bull would interact with each other negatively. "I'll take a trip over to St. Francis after I finish my appointments today."

 

Jesse was satisfied at that, and we both got out of the car, with me jumping over the puddle of sick I'd left on the floor next to the passenger side. I'd have to hose that down soon.

 

I went upstairs with Jesse, thoroughly brushed my teeth, and then changed out of my yoga pants and mediation boots. What I wanted to do next was bury myself underneath the bed covers in my underwear and not come out until there weren't any bags under my eyes, but I resisted the temptation. Instead, I changed into a sheath dress and then proceeded to try and put on as much makeup as I could to mask the fact that it was approaching twenty-four hours since I'd last slept.

 

Halfway through another round of under eye concealer, Jesse approached me from behind and put his arms around my waist.

 

I could feel the outline of his muscles through both the fabric of his shirt and my dress as he kissed the top of my head and said, "How do you really feel, querida?"

 

"Fine," I insisted.

 

"How do you really feel," Jesse repeated. "As in, truthfully."

 

I hesitated for a second before I said, "Nauseous."

 

As a reward for my honesty, Jesse moved his head from the top of mine to my earlobe. He nibbled it as he asked, very softly, "Headache? Muscle aches in general, maybe?"

 

"Only because I'm tired," I mumbled.

 

This was from my preferred brand of sexy talk, but, even as exhausted as I was, Jesse's ministrations on my ear were highly persuasive.

 

"Are you experiencing any congestion? Stuffy head, runny nose…?" he asked.

 

His mouth moved from my ear to the side of my neck then, and I tilted my head to the side instinctively to give him better access. I was about to respond when I remembered that Jesse was not just my concerned husband; he was also a doctor.

 

"Oh, no, you don't," I said. "I'm going into work, and I'll stop by to see someone this evening."

 

"I had to try," he said, sounding not even a tiny bit sheepish as he removed his arms from around me and began his own morning routine. He had already ironed the button down he’d been wearing and changed into a pair of chinos. Jeans were typically frowned upon at the office amongst medical professionals.

 

I put on eyeliner and mascara without accidentally stabbing myself, an impressive feat when I was running off of approximately zero hours of sleep, while Jesse took to the task of shaving the stubble that had accumulated on his face since the previous morning. He always shaved with a straight razor instead of a regular electric one. Jake and Brad found this, the act of shaving with a straight razor, incredibly cool and masculine, but I always found the sight of a sharp blade so close to Jesse's face a bit daunting.

 

Daunting? More like...nauseating.

 

And for the second time that morning, I found myself spilling my guts. After what had happened in the garage, there wasn't much of anything left though, so I spent most of my time in front of the toilet dry heaving in agony. I felt one of Jesse's hands on my back and the other pulling my hair away from my face. True love, the kind of love Madame Zara described, meant holding the other person's hair while they threw up.

 

"I'm going to work," I insisted as I raised my head from the toilet and pulled off a piece of nearby toilet paper to wipe my mouth with.

 

"You didn't even show up on time on Monday," Jesse said. "Why do you care so much today?"

 

I flushed the toilet and then put the seat and lid down so that I could sit on it. Standing was a more formidable challenge than sitting.

 

Jesse didn't look annoyed with me over my stubbornness though. Nor did he look upset about yesterday. The only thing I saw in his eyes when I looked at him was concern, and it was that concern that made me break.

 

"I'm meeting with the kid from the robberies today," I confessed. "I think he might know something that could help us."

 

"I should have known it was that," Jesse said. "But if you're sick, then ethically, putting you around so many young children..."

 

"You mean, young children who are also sick and probably gave me my cold?"

 

"I don't think this is a cold, querida. Not with you vomiting twice in such a short time period."

 

I drew my knees up to my chest while still sitting on the toilet seat cover. "It's a cold," I said stubbornly.

 

"When is your appointment with the child?" Jesse asked.

 

"Three thirty."

 

"Then take the morning off and go to St. Francis."

 

"Can't I just take the morning off and sleep and drink some orange juice?"

 

Jesse gave me a withering look. For a man who'd once suggested I put butter on my blistered feet, he really did turn his nose up at home remedies.

 

He checked his watch and said, "It's a quarter till seven. I'll take you there myself, and you can take a taxi back home. You're in no state to drive."

 

His tone was final, and I realized that arguing with him at this point was futile. He left the bathroom while I brushed my teeth again and reapplied some of my makeup. Apparently, not even a lip stain could stand up to stomach acid.

 

The BMW was sitting in the driveway by the time I arrived outside. The garage was open, and the floor was wet, so I was pretty sure Jesse had done me the favor of cleaning things up from earlier. I climbed into the passenger side of the car and dozed off in the short ride between our house and St. Francis. Jesse shook me lightly to wake me up once we'd arrived at the hospital.

 

 

As I prepared to get out of the car, Jesse said, "Take a cab and go home after your appointment. And sleep. I don't want to see you at work before three."

 

Jesse worried too much sometimes, but I didn't tell him so. Instead, all I said was goodbye.

 

When I entered the hospital a few moments later, I was greeted by none other than Peggy, who looked at me with recognition when I met her eyes. You don't forget the woman who threatens to sick a bunch of unvaccinated kids on your maternity ward, after all.

 

"Are you here to see someone today? I see you didn't bring any children with you this time," Peggy said in a tone that had a bit more of a hostile bite than that of most receptionists.

 

"I'm not here to visit anyone today,” I said. “I want to make an appointment.”

 

At that, Peggy looked somewhat chagrined as she changed her tone into a more professional one. We went over my symptoms briefly and she gave me some paperwork to fill out.

 

I took the clipboard from Peggy and began copying down information in one of the hard seats of the hospital waiting room. The local news was playing in one of the corners of the room. From where I wasn't sitting, I couldn't really hear it, but I could read along with the closed captions. But I didn't need the captions for what was playing across the screen.

 

There was a surveillance video on the TV screen, just like the one I'd seen at the Happy Medium courtesy of CeeCee, taken at a jewelry store. The cash register came open of its own accord and stacks of money came dancing out by themselves until they floated out of the line of sight of the security camera.

 

But Jesse and I had been parked there, albeit at a bit of a distance, and I hadn't taken my eyes off of the damn store for hours. I hadn't seen anything amiss at all. The only way the robbery could've happened without me knowing was if it happened somewhere else.

 

When I read the headlines after the the surveillance footage clip was taken off of the screen, my suspicions were confirmed. All the excitement last night had gone on at the other jewelry store, the one down the street from where we had been parked.

 

That meant that the jewelry store Jesse and I had parked near was definitely going to be the one the ghost decided to hit up next.

 

I was on the verge of formulating a plan when I heard by name being called by one of the nurses.

 

"Suze?" the nurse asked. I recognized her from Jesse's days at St. Francis as Jill. She was plain but very kind and very briefly had the ghost of a former patient vying after her. That was the primary reason why I still remembered her.

 

"Long time no see," I offered.

 

Jill smiled and said, "I wish we could be meeting again under different circumstances."

 

She took down my weight, blood pressure, and temperature, and grilled me briefly on my symptoms before she left me to my own devices in an examination room.

 

I hopped onto the examination table as I waited for the doctor who, according to Jill, was named Dr. Morgan. I hadn't heard the name before, so I wasn't sure if he knew Jesse or not.

 

I whipped out my phone while I was waiting. Instead of texting anyone or playing a round of Ghost Mediator to pass the time (I would rather support Jack Slater in my boredom than Kim Kardashian or whoever was behind Candy Crush), I searched for and saved the address of the remaining jewelry store into a note file. I wasn't looking forward to it, but I'd have to go back for another stakeout. I hoped the ghost could hold off on thieving and murdering for an evening while I slept. A mediator who was as far from full strength as I was would not be particularly effective.

 

Just as I put my phone back into my bag, the doctor entered the room.

 

As it turned out, Dr. Morgan was a woman.

 

I stood briefly and shook her hand.

 

"Nice to meet you, Susannah," she said. "I'm Morgana."

 

"Dr. Morgana Morgan," I said. "And here I thought my mom was a bit vindictive for naming me Susannah."

 

Dr. Morgana Morgan grimaced.

 

"It's why we encourage our patients here to wait until after the pain killers have worn off a bit before they name their child," she said. "But enough about me. You don't have a fever and your blood pressure looks great, but the nurse tells me that you've been feeling nauseous and tired for the past week or so."

 

"That about sums it up. I know I'm wasting your time and everything since it's just a cold, maybe a stomach bug, but my husband's a doctor, and he kept begging me to get it checked out, so…."

 

"Your husband's a doctor, huh? You wouldn't happen to be married to the Dr. de Silva who used to work here in the ER, would you?"

 

"That's the one," I said.

 

"I've heard good things about him then, and I think he's got a good point. I don't think you're wasting my time at all."

 

I was pretty sure she was wrong about that, but I didn't mention it.

 

"Can you tell me when your last period was?" Dr. Morgan asked.

 

"Oh, I'm not pregnant," I said immediately.

 

"I didn't say you were. I'm just trying to consider all possible options."

 

"I'm on birth control," I emphasized.

 

"So then the date of your last period should be particularly easy to remember. When did you take your placebo pills?"

 

"Two and a half weeks ago," I said.

 

"So then your last period was two and a half weeks ago?"

 

I fidgeted. "More like six and a half. I might have skipped a period."

 

Dr. Morgan made a "hmm" noise, like she had already constructed an image of me in her mind giving birth in nine months or something.

 

"I know you can skip periods when you're stressed out enough. My husband and I just opened a clinic up a couple of weeks ago, and we've both been pretty stressed. Missing a period doesn't really mean anything," I said.

 

I'd had to learn all about stress in counseling courses. The toll stress could take on the body went far beyond the mind. There were plenty of physical ways in which stress could manifest itself. One of those manifestations was missing or irregular periods.

 

"That's very true, Susannah," Dr. Morgan said. "Stress can affect your menstrual cycle. But stress only affects the menstrual cycle of those who are not taking hormonal birth control."

 

I shifted uncomfortably, and my mouth suddenly felt drier than usual.

 

"Oh," I said weakly.


End file.
